Three in a row for Nico

Germany's Nico Rosberg scorched to his third successive Formula One pole position with team mate Lewis Hamilton completing a front row lockout for Mercedes at the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday.

The pole was the fourth in a row for Mercedes, whose qualifying form has faded in the races so far this season, and second successive sweep of the top two places. Red Bull's triple world champion Sebastian Vettel qualified third, on a drying track after a damp session, with Australian team mate and last year's winner Mark Webber lining up alongside.

Title contender Kimi Raikkonen, four points behind Vettel after five races, starts fifth for Lotus with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in sixth place for a race where overtaking can be extremely tricky.

Rosberg could become the first son of a Monaco Grand Prix winner to win the most glamorous race on the calendar - 30 years on from his world champion father Keke's 1983 victory for Williams - but he was not about to get ahead of himself.

"It's always nice to hear statistics like that but it doesn't change much for tomorrow," said the Monaco resident who grew up in the Mediterranean principality and had dominated every practice session through the treacherous metal-fenced streets. "In Barcelona we were struggling a lot in the race and I finished 70 seconds behind the winner. We're improving step by step, but there are still a lot of questions remaining. It (the tyre wear) is still our weakness but we'll make the best of it and who knows."

Hamilton, 0.91 slower than his team mate, was happy to overcome the problems he experienced in practice and to qualify second for a race that should see just two pitstops rather than the average of four witnessed in Spain.